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Luka's Story-Paradox	By : Ditmag Category: +M through R > Monster Girl Quest Views: 2709 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Monster Girl Quest Paradox is the intellectual property of Tortorro Restistance. I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 30
- 31
- 32
We entered Grandeur the next day. Grandeur was another town that I’d never heard of before, so I assumed it must have been founded after the Great Disaster. In my world, Sabasa had had plenty of theaters, but apparently this Grandeur Theater was a bigger deal than anything other theater in the world, a place where all the best plays and musical acts happened. As a matter of fact, the whole town was an entertainment district, with smaller theaters in the east and west districts. But the Grandeur Theater was in the north, and that’s where all the attention was directed.
Despite the fact it was early in the morning, the town was bustling with excitement. Merchants hawked T-shirts with the face of a lovely succubus on them. Was that the succubus we were supposed to investigate? I bought a shirt and put it on. Alice rolled her eyes.
“Seriously?!” Alice whined.
“It’s a cool shirt,” I replied defensively. “Ideal for desert travel. So do you think this is the succubus we’re checking out?”
“What a remarkable assumption. Did you ever accomplish anything without me to point you in the right direction?”
“I’m sure there was a time or two,” I said, pouting. I only had a thousand years on this girl and she was still running intellectual circles around me.
“Saki-chan!” a passerby yelled at me, holding up a weird hand sign.
“What did that guy say?” Sonya asked.
“Saki-chan!” a woman chimed in, noticing my T-shirt.
“I’m guessing that this Saki-chan is our succubus,” Ilias observed. “Given the excitement, I’m guessing she’s doing a concert tonight.”
“Wow, nothing gets past you either,” Alice said sourly.
“She must be good to be creating this much excitement,” Sonya noted.
“I’m sure she’s talented, but she’s a succubus, so she has natural seduction magic,” Alice pointed out. “I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s a madhouse here.”
Actually, I’d seen and read about many such phenomena on Earth, so the situation neither surprised nor alarmed me. I was wondering if perhaps everyone was simply overreacting. Was it bad if a succubus was capturing the imagination of a town? As far as I was concerned, that was just one of the benefits of coexistence. There had been succubi superstars on my adopted world, and some had even made their way to Earth, turning world tours into interdimensional tours. They had to be very talented, however, since their seduction magic worked only very subtly on Earth.
“I wouldn’t be too alarmed,” I argued. “This looks like Super Bowl Sunday on my home world.”
“The Super what the what?” Ilias asked.
“It’s a huge sporting event that takes place once a year. Kinda like the Queen’s Cup in Grand Noah. That kind of energy.”
“Saki-chan!” a little boy yelled to me, also making the weird finger sign. It almost looked like the metal horns, if Ariana Grande had invented a pop version of the metal horns.
“Excuse me, child,” Ilias said, flagging the boy down. “What time does the Saki-chan concert start?”
“In one hour!” the boy said excitedly. “I have to hurry if I want to get a ticket!”
“One hour?” Alice said. “It’s like… three hours before noon. What pop star has a concert that early in the morning?”
“Well, let’s go get tickets then,” I suggested. “We won’t be able to investigate her if they sell out.”
By the time we arrived at the box office, the tickets had indeed sold out. But there was good news. Saki-chan was doing another show at noon. And another in the afternoon. And another show in the evening.
“Okay, I’ll have five tickets for the noon show,” I said.
“Sorry, two ticket limit for today’s shows,” the box office clerk informed me. “It’s the weekend, so demand is high. If you want to catch a weekday show, you can buy as many tickets as you want. They still sell out, but everyone who wants to see a show that day can get tickets.”
“Wait, she’s playing tomorrow, too?” Sara asked.
“She plays four times a day, six days a week!” the clerk replied, then added, “Saki-chan!”
“Just get two tickets,” Ilias ordered. “Best to get this over with. We still need to go to Magistea. I don’t want to dawdle here.”
“Okay, I’ll take two for the noon show, then,” I said.
“Twelve gold,” the clerk informed me.
Not only was this succubus playing every day, she was commanding twice the price of any other musical act at this time period in my world. I grumbled as I counted out twelve gold pieces. I thought to myself that I must be becoming an old cheapskate.
“Sonya, Sara, you two are with me,” Ilias said.
“Why do I have to go?!” Sonya asked. “I wanted to see the show with Luka!”
“Sonya, you and I need to have a little talk,” Ilias replied. “Besides, we’re going to be gathering information. I need a good femme fatale type with me.”
“Oh, well I am good at that.”
The three ladies walked back down the street, leaving Alice and me alone among the bustling crowds. It was so bad that Alice was getting jostled, which wasn’t fun in her little kid body. I mentally enlarged her to her adult size, which caused everyone to give her a wider birth. She smiled at me in appreciation, in between glares at Saki fans.
“This is worse than I thought,” Alice said. “If she’s selling out shows every day, several times a day, that means she’s seduced the entire town. I’m sure you can see how this would be a problem. The town’s productivity is probably suffering. Relationships are probably fraying due to both partners being obsessed with this succubus.”
“Now I’m eager to see what all the fuss is about,” I said.
“Of course you are. Damned fanboy.”
Better than being called a pervert, I guess. I mollified Alice by buying her various goodies at the nearby shops. And then I saw it. A lovely tail ribbon that looked exactly like the one I’d bought for Alice on our first journey. I couldn’t even recall where I’d found it. More accurately, Alice had found it, and requested it. Since she’d never requested anything from me that wasn’t edible before, I had bought it without hesitation. It had disappeared after our marriage, until one day she’d brought it out for one of our anniversaries. She’d been keeping it in a little chest by her throne. It was the only treasure in the chest. I had been incredibly moved by that gesture. I pulled the ribbon off of the rack and showed it to Alice.
“It’s cute,” she said noncomittaly.
I noticed that despite the fact I hadn’t been concentrating, she was still in her adult form. Was I getting so good at that particular use of my power that I required less and less focus to keep her that way?
“I’d like to buy it for you,” I said.
“If you want,” she said, again noncommittally. “It’s not like I want it or anything, but if you think it would look good on me, I’ll wear it.”
From Alice, that was an endorsement, so I paid for the ribbon and affixed it to her tail myself. She beamed as she held her tail up to inspect it. Then she frowned.
“You do know what Ilias is talking to Sonya about, right?” she asked.
“No, why would I?”
“She’s telling Sonya about us, you idiot!”
“What?! Why would she do that?!”
“Because once you spilled the beans to her, she can’t very well not tell Sonya. Ilias understands that you loved my counterpart back on your world. Sonya gets her Luka back when this is all over, so you being with me for the short time that you’re here is no threat to her relationship with this world’s Luka. Ilias is explaining that to her so that she’ll accept that you're into me. And so we don’t have to sneak around so much. Did you think that buying me a cute little gift like this wouldn’t be noticed by Sonya?”
I hadn’t thought of that. I had to admit it would have seemed pretty suspicious that I had bought Alice a cute gift and not Sonya. But hadn’t I bought Hild a gift, and Rami a gift, and even Regina a gift? I guess I just didn’t understand women, or how some gifts were more meaningful than others. I was also keenly aware of something Alice and Ilias were not: that Sonya wasn’t just waiting around for her Luka to return. She had expressed her love for ME, liking the more sophisticated, older Luka, unsure if she could ever look at her immature childhood friend the same way again.
“Well, it’s about time we went back to the theater to see Saki-chan,” I said, eager to move on from such difficult conversations. I was keenly aware that a happy ending for any woman hoping to be with me was not in the cards. Maybe that’s why I was so eager to fool around with the monsters in the castle. There was no emotional attachment, no risk of hurting anyone. When I was gone, all most of the monsters would regret was that they’d lost their favorite chew toy.
Alice and I went back to the theater and waited in line for the doors to open. Chants of “Saki-chan!” were beginning even before anyone was let in. Alice looked at me as if to say, “See how bad this is?!” I still wasn’t persuaded. I’d seen much worse on Earth. And those superstars hadn’t had magic to assist them.
A loud cheer erupted from the crowd as the doors opened. Fifteen minutes later, I handed our tickets to the usher and we were in. The theater was quite grand. It looked like it could seat about one thousand. Given that she was performing four times a day, six days a week, that meant twenty-four thousand fans per week. I was pretty sure Grandeur didn’t have twenty-four thousand people at any given time, despite being a tourist mecca. Maybe the town was a bit obsessed.
Since it was general admission, I found a couple of empty seats and plopped my butt down in one. Alice directed me to make sure her seat was saved so that she could go seek out the owner of the theater. While I waited for her to return, and for the show to start, I gazed around at the audience.
I’d expected a mostly male audience. She was a succubus, after all. But the audience seemed about evenly split between males and females, and if anything, the females were louder and more enthusiastic, some dressed as their idol. Some had even painted themselves a light blue to match the succubus’ skin color.
Alice returned a few moments later and sat next to me.
“The manager tells me that this succubus has been hogging the stage for weeks,” Alice informed me. “While he likes the gate she draws, he’s worried that he’s losing all of his other acts. They are very angry at being upstaged and not getting a chance to go on.”
“If it makes him more money, what’s the problem?” I asked, stubbornly refusing to see an issue.
“He makes more money now, but there’s no way she’s going to perform here forever. This may be the greatest theater in the world, but if she’s as good as her reputation suggests, she’s going to move on to coliseums. An act like this could probably sell out Grand Noah’s coliseum. And then what’s he left with? He needs her off that stage and soon.”
“Why doesn’t he just tell her to go somewhere else?”
“She’s a succubus, idiot! He has gone to tell her, after almost every show for the last two weeks. And you know what happens when he enters her dressing room?”
“He…. Asks her to leave?”
“No!” Alice exclaimed, by that point quite frustrated at my denseness. “He says, ‘Saki-chan!’ and he leaves, forgetting what he wanted to tell her. If he does get far enough towards asking her to go, she shuts him up with one kiss. Which makes him forget what he was in there for.”
The lights went down. “Ooh! It’s starting!” I said eagerly. Alice rolled her eyes.
“One song!” she admonished. “Maybe two! Just to find out how she’s doing it. Then we end this.”
“With force?” I asked. “Against a singer? We’re not the owner. She won’t leave just because we tell her to.”
“Hello?! Monster Lord here? I do have some pull with monsters, you know. Although she is a succubus, so it might come down to force. C’mon, forget these seats! We’re going down to stage level.”
Grabbing my hand, Alice dragged me down towards the stage. A security guard tried to prevent us, but a flash from Alice’s eyes made him decide that she was a VIP and quite welcome stageside.
“You can do that now?” I asked.
“Not as well as I used to, but human males have never been a challenge,” Alice answered.
Another security guard approached us. Alice’s eyes flashed again. This time the security guard put his lanyard around Alice’s neck, showing that she was authorized to be there. She smiled sweetly at him and shooed him away. Then Alice got flashed, yelping as bright lights erupted all around us. Then pyro went off. Was that safe? Alice shook her head, trying to clear it, as Saki hit the stage to a loud techno beat. I saw no band. Was the music being piped in? Electronic music hadn’t existed on my version of this world. I had brought that kind of music with me.
Unlike Alice, I wasn’t affected by the lights or the sounds, probably because my human senses weren’t as sharp as hers. I was affected, however, by Sylph dancing furiously inside my heart.
“Yay! Time to boogie!” Sylph exulted.
Saki yelled a greeting to the audience. They shouted back, “Saki-chan!” She asked them who they were here to see. They shouted back, “Saki-chan!” She asked them who they loved. “Saki-chan!”
Then she began to sing. Despite the loud techno music, her voice came through clearly. If I’m being honest, it was clearer and the sound more balanced than at any show I’d ever been to. I concluded that magic must be doing most of the work, as I saw no amplifiers or speakers anywhere. And that voice! She was definitely top tier. The total package, in fact. Beautiful, a great singer, a great dancer, with crazy charisma. The song was about partying, a standard pop number to get the crowd in the mood. And they were definitely in the mood. Everyone was up and dancing like crazy. Saki-chan would point and smile at individual audience members whose dances she particularly enjoyed. That would cause them to dance even harder.
The song must have been one she had performed before, because the crowd was singing the chorus with incredible volume. Despite that, she could still be heard clearly over the crowd’s singing, and yet the volume wasn’t oppressive. I’d heard far louder at heavy metal concerts.
I turned to Alice, only to find her butt moving in rhythm to the song. “Alice, you like it that much?”
“I don’t like it at all!” she replied grumpily. “It’s her magic. I can’t help it!”
“If it makes you feel better, you’re resisting it far better than anyone else here!” I shouted back.
“I’m the Monster Lord. Of course I can resist better than anyone else! Except for you, apparently.”
True, I wasn’t dancing, although I was enjoying the music immensely. Saki was a rare talent and would be a sure thing on Earth, up there with the greatest of all time. But whatever seduction magic she had, I was apparently immune to it. Still, I was enchanted, by her talent and her beauty and her energy.
The song ended and the lights went down. A piano at stage right began playing a mournful melody. A ballad for the second song? The fans stopped dancing and began swaying instead as Saki began to sing a sad song of lost love. I had an uncharitable thought that a succubus wouldn’t know anything about that. But that was a stereotype. Despite Alma Elma’s disgust, some succubi did in fact fall in love with humans and marry, and had done so, if rarely, even before coexistence. Although a succubus could never be truly monogamous given their feeding needs. No husband could survive long being a succubus’ sole source of nutrition. They needed several times the semen that other monster races did.
Still, the song was moving, and Saki had a knack for capturing the sadness of it in her voice. I saw people tearing up in the crowd. Even Alice seemed to be reacting to it, although she was bravely stifling her tears. I took Alice’s hand.
“Dance with me, Alice,” I urged.
“No,” she said firmly. “Hell no. I do not dance.”
“You were dancing a second ago!”
“I was under the influence of very strong magic!”
“You’re still under the influence of that magic,” I pointed out. “You’re going to start bawling any second now. So dance with me. It’ll distract you.”
Alice, seeing the merit in what I said, reluctantly put her arms around me and we began to slow dance. Neither of us were very good dancers. Under Tamamo’s tutelage, I had gone from cringe-inducingly awful to merely bad. Alice still had three left feet even though she didn’t have any feet. The song masked all of those shortcomings. We looked deeply into each other’s eyes as the emotions washed over us. Perhaps this had been a bad idea. The song’s lyrics only became sadder and more tragic, a foreshadowing of the fate of our own love. Alice buried her face into my shoulder, for the first time ever in our relationship, choosing to be shorter than me. She did not cry, however. She simply held me tightly as we danced, as if she never wanted to let me go. The feeling was mutual.
When the song ended, the techno beat started up once again, this time ushering in a happier, more playful song about innocent young love. Alice looked up at me, still holding me.
“Let’s go up on the stage and get her out of here,” Alice said. “I don’t want to see what happens if she sings a sexy song.”
Yikes. Good point. She might start an orgy. I was beginning to see things from Alice and Ilias’ viewpoint. Saki was simply too good. It killed me to get such talent off the stage, but it had to be done. Alice and I advanced towards the stage stairs. Several security guards, apparently having seen fans do that before, moved to block our path. An eye flash from Alice caused the men to clear a path, waving us onto the stage as if we were part of the show.
Saki wasn’t aware of our presence until we were standing right next to her. She bumped into me while dancing, turning angrily to finally notice the two of us on HER stage.Saki’s lovely face made a fetchingly angry pout.
“Hey, what are you doing up here? No touching!” Saki said with indignation.
“A succubus that doesn’t want touching?” Alice snarked. “That’s a new one.”
“Buzz off, snake!” Saki said.
“You may address me as Monster Lord,” Alice said darkly.
“I don’t care if you’re the queen of Sabasa!” Saki yelled back. “I am a citizen of the world. I answer to no monarch!”
“You…. Dare?!”
“Look, Saki,” I said, trying to use all of my diplomatic skill. The crowd was already beginning to boo the interruption to their show. “Could you please quit monopolizing the stage? You’re causing problems for the manager and the other performers.”
Saki turned towards the crowd and addressed them. “This man and the Monster Lord say I have to stop!”
The crowd was horrified, screaming for Saki to continue.
“Do you guys want me to stop?!” Saki asked the crowd, holding out her microphone.
A resounding “NO!” nearly blew us off the stage.
“See, they like me,” Saki said smugly. “So are you going to keep being a couple of stalkers, or are you going to get off the stage and let me do what I do?”
I sighed. “Saki, I have to ask you to get off the stage. You can wait until after the show if you want, but you can’t just take this stage every day, all day. The owner needs you to go, Saki.”
“Why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
“I think you know exactly why he can’t tell you himself,” Alice said angrily. “Like all succubi, you’re a manipulative little…”
“What Alice means to say,” I said, covering Alice’s mouth with my hand. “Is that you have an… effect on people. I know you can’t help it, but it’s causing problems in this town. So can you please just not book any more dates here for awhile?”
“You are such a pain in the ass,” Saki replied. She turned back to the crowd.
“Hey everyone!” Saki yelled. “These two want me to leave the stage, but I’m not going to! Because I’m here for each and every one of you!”
The crowd roared their approval.
“So it looks like you all get a bonus today!” Saki continued. “You came for a concert, and you get a fight for free! I’m going to kick these two all over the stage!”
The crowd roared again as Saki dropped the mic and decked me with a sucker punch. That finally broke what little focus I needed to keep Alice big. Alice’s tail whipped out to retaliate against Saki, but due to her rapid shrinking she misjudged and missed. She did not, however, fail to block Saki’s punch to her jaw, catching her arm and holding onto it. Alice’s tail began to wrap around Saki to restrain her.
I rose to see Saki point her free finger at Alice’s chest. “Sexy beam!” Saki yelled to the crowd's approval. A thin beam shot out of her fingertip, impacting Alice directly in the chest. Alice fell over, quivering in ecstasy.
“And one for you!” Saki exclaimed with a smile. I twisted around, but still took the beam on the shoulder. A wave of pleasure shot through my shoulder and neck, but not enough to cause problems. She lowered her aim towards my groin. This time I didn’t try to dodge. I went to my old standby, a shield, which absorbed the beam harmlessly.
Alice was already up, impressively resistant to the critical ecstasy the beam must have caused her. I imagined that if monsters could have critical ecstasy incflicted on them, then Alice must have been trained by the best: Alma Elma. Alma Elma would have taken great joy in putting Alice in critical ecstasy again and again until she became conditioned to endure it.
“Saki kiss!” Saki yelled, throwing herself at me. She had magic, but she wasn’t skilled at combat, because I simply stepped aside, causing her to stumble to the ground. I reached down to try to restrain her, a dumb move since I had Alice with me. Touching a succubus is never a good idea if it can be avoided.
I never reached her. Saki opened her mouth and began to sing in a high pitched tone. Alice covered her ears, crying out in pain. The crowd moaned as one, covering their own ears. While it was painful for me too, the years of listening to heavy metal enabled me to endure it with only a small amount of discomfort, although I was sure my ears would be ringing for a day or so. Still, she’d managed to hold me off with her sonic attack.
Another sexy beam put Alice down again. That left me alone against a very angry Saki. Have you ever heard a man say that a girl is beautiful when she’s angry? It’s normally not true. Alice certainly wasn’t. Even Alma Elma looked downright bitchy when she was in a mood. Saki, on the other hand, was adorable angry. I won’t say she was the loveliest woman I’d ever seen, but she was probably the woman who was best at looking amazing no matter what her circumstances.
She fired a sexy beam at me. Easily blocked by my shield. She threw another punch. I was ready for that as well, although I didn’t hit her back. Then she pulled a deck of cards out of her skirt.
“Hah!” Saki shouted in triumph as she pulled the top card off of the deck and showed it to me. I wasn’t sure why I was supposed to be impressed. Saki looked at me, confused at my lack of quivering in fear. She turned the card to look at it, then said, “Aw, crap.”
Saki shrunk to half her size. She began backing away from me.
“Now you wouldn’t pick on a little girl, now would you?” Saki said fearfully.
“He wouldn’t,” Alice said from behind her. “But I owe you!”
Alice wound up and nailed her with a cross to the jaw. Saki wobbled unsteadly, then fell. The crowd gasped in horror, then loudly booed. They began throwing things at the stage. Alice put a shield around the stage. The drinks and toilet paper(toilet paper?) bounced harmlessly off the shield.
“You can do that now, too?” I asked.
“I have been practicing, you know,” Alice replied. “What do you think I do when I’m not with you?”
“Ohhhh….” Saki moaned, sitting up. “I can’t believe I lost to you two losers.”
“Losers?” Alice huffed. “Luka could have defeated you anytime he wanted! He simply didn’t want to hurt you because he’s such a fanboy!”
“Here, let me restore you,” I said, willing Saki to her full size again. Saki smiled at me in appreciation.
“Oh wow, you have magic!” Saki said in surprise. “Thank you so much! It would have taken me hours to get back to my true size!”
“That’s what you get for playing with card magic,” Alice scolded her.
“It works most of the time! I just got unlucky!”
Saki picked the microphone up and addressed the crowd again. “Saki lost,” she said. “I’m sorry, my fans.”
The crowd was horrified, begging her to continue her performance.
“I know, I know!” Saki said. “But I’m a monster. I lost. I have to do what they say now.”
“No!” some fans shouted.
“Saki-chan!” shouted even more.
Saki turned back to us. “Saki’s dream is to become the world’s top idol, and yet…. To think that my dream would end here.”
“Who said anything about your dream ending?” I responded. “You’re amazing! We just can’t have you giving so many performances that no one else gets a chance!”
“But this is the best theater in the world!” Saki protested.
“That may be so,” Alice pointed out. “But it’s the best theater in a small town. You’re too big for this town now.”
“Y-you mean that?”
“I do,” Alice said. “In fact, we are touring the world right now. You should come with us. You can perform all over.”
“Wait,” I said. “You want Saki to… come with us?”
“Oh, don’t act like you weren’t going to ask her,” Alice said. “Since it’s going to happen anyway, something good might as well come of it.”
“Fans!” Saki yelled. “I’m going to go on a world tour!”
The crowd roared. “We’ll follow you anywhere, Saki-chan!” a young girl in the front row yelled. The crowd agreed with her enthusiastically. I hoped that didn’t mean a thousand people following us all over the world on our quest.
“Why don’t you finish your performance here,” I said. “Actually, finish your performances for the day. You don’t want to disappoint your fans who bought tickets.”
“The owner will have to refund tomorrow’s tickets, but hopefully not many were sold yet,” Alice pointed out. “I’m sure he’ll be glad this has been resolved.”
“I’m so excited!” Saki said. “Okay, let me continue with my performance! I’ll meet you at the Grandeur inn tonight after my last one!”

We didn’t stay for the rest of the performance. If Saki was coming with us, I knew that there would be plenty of opportunities to see her, opportunities which I had every intention of taking advantage of.
“You did well in there,” Alice said. “To think that I would fall victim to critical ecstasy before you. How embarrassing.”
“I assume Alma Elma taught you how to resist it so well?” I asked.
“I’m not talking about that. Ever. Don’t ever speak of it again.”
I decided it would be best to change the subject. Alice’s blue face was turning a shade of purple, a sure sign that she was mortified.
“I wonder how that music was playing?” I wondered aloud.
“She was using magic,” Alice explained. “Ever since the Great Disaster, weird magical talents have been emerging in monster and human alike. Juska is one example. I read Saki’s magic. Hers is similar to Juska’s. Apparently she can make sound, whereas Juska can massively increase her strength and speed. Combine Saki’s natural talent with her sexual magic, add in a kind of music no one has ever heard before, and she’s an instant sensation.”
“Were the cards part of her strange magic?”
“No, that was just a mechanical effect.”
“Mechanical effect?”
“Artificial,” Alice clarified. “When you use Angel Halo, you’re not using your own magic. So it’s known as mechanical magic. It’s just a thing anyone can use. The card deck she was using is a special magical card battler deck. Very potent magic, but also risky. Unearned power almost always comes with a price. So the inventor of the card battler deck put in a relatively harmless tradeoff. A standard deck has 52 cards. Of those 52 cards, 45 have a random effect beneficial to the wielder. But seven have negative effects. She drew an unlucky card.”
“She drew the top card. Why didn’t she just arrange the deck to put the good cards on top?”
“Because that nullifies the magic. A battle deck only works if it’s shuffled adequately. If the wielder cheats, the deck simply won’t work.”
“Ah, I get it now. Very interesting.”
“Did they not have that where you came from?” Alice asked.
“No, there was less magic. In this world it seems as if everyone and their grandmother uses a little bit of magic.”
“Great Disaster,” Alice said. “it changed everything. Let’s go find the girls. I want to see if they learned anything more about whatever is going on in Magistea.”
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